Solved Restore Comparisons using Macrium Easeus, Aoemei & Hasleo

I decided to systematic test restores of my pc using Macrium Reflect, Easeus Todo and Aomei Backupper (all paid versions)
I was rather shocked by the some of the results.

EDIT: I Have added Hasleo as well (free version)

My PC OS drive setup
1) EFI
2) MSR
3) C Drive (OS + programs)
4) Recovery Partition
5) D drive (data only)

Images stored on a second internal hard drive (for speed).

I have quite a few native boot vhds attached as well, so have a multi-boot pc.

Macrium Reflect image - I backup partitions 1 - 4 (I backup partition 5 separately)
Aomei Backupper - I chose System Backup - that backs up partition 1, 3 and 4 but does not backup partition 2
Easeus Todo - I chose OS Backup - that only backs up partition 1 & 3 and 4 but does not backup partition 2 or 4.
Hasleo - I chose system backup - that backs up partitions 1, 2, 3 and 4 - promising start
Hasleo also had an option to add drivers - I added my NVME IRST driver just to be on safe side.

Edit - I was mistaken - it does not back up the recovery partition as part of its system backup. Why do none of the alternatives do 1, 2, 3 and 4!

Macrium Reflect Restore (V8.1)
This worked fine as I expected - took 4 minutes for a full restore (I usually use RDR which is much quicker though)
The initial multi-boot screen was restored perfectly as well.

Conclusion: Rock solid as ever.

Aomei Backupper
The basic restore seemed to work fine as I expected - took 3 minutes for a full restore (fast)
However, it completely mangled by multi-boot screen with entries having no names shown.
In a dire emergency, e.g. Macrium Reflect failing to restore, it is easy enough to rebuild the multi-boot bcd if necessary.

I also tried a partition restore but that fell over complaining about bad sectors - at this point I gave up.

Conclusion: Only use OS restore if all else has failed (with Macrium Reflect in my case)


Easeus Todo
When I selected Restore, it showed the new partition layout you will end up with.
To my "horror", it does not just restore partition 1 and 3, it also deletes the MSR partition (moving partition 3 to left by 16 MB).

OK, the MSR partition is not needed, but nonetheless an OS Restore should not change partition layouts. This is really poor design.

So I did not bother going any further.

I then tried a different method. I made a partition backup backing up partitions 1, 2, 3 and 4 as for Macrium Reflect which would avoid the issue of changing partition layouts.

When you make a partition backup, you have two ways you can restore - all saved partitions in one go, or one at a time.

So, my first thought was to restore all in one go.

To my absolute horror, it showed the new layout, and the data partition 5 would have been be wiped out!
This is incredibly poor design and dangerous.
I obviously cancelled this restore.

If you restore partitions individually, it only overwrites the same partition (as Reflect does), so is safer.

So I thought go for it - a pain to restore each individually but doable.

So I did it. To my shock horror the PC would no longer boot.
Thank unspecified deities for Macrium Reflect backups!

I have not tested a simpler configuration i.e. only the four standard MS Partitions.

Conclusion - Do not use Easeus, particularly if you have additional partitions on OS drive.

Hasleo

Hasleo's GUI is pretty much same as AOMEI and similar backup options.
You can do incremental or differential backups as well.

The system restore option worked fine. All my multiboot entries were properly restored & my partition 5 was left intact.

One Warning though : if you backup the 4 partitions using disk backup, then do a restore - it wipes partition 5!
In other words - backup all partitions in a disk backup or you may get a nasty surprise

Overall Conclusions

Macrium Reflect is rock solid and dependable (for me).
AOEMI Restore sort of works but was flakey for my setup. I would only use this if Macrium Reflect totally let me down.
Easeus is a disaster - do not touch with a bargepole (in my opinion)
Hasleo worked fine with system restore mode (use disk mode with care). I am considering using this as my alternative backup tool (recognising it does not backup the recovery partition on system backup mode).
edit: one annoying minor problem with Hasleo is it creates a service that has to be running all the time. If you put service on manual, Hasleo does not start.

I stress all these conclusions are based on my setup for OS drive, but it is not that unusual and both AOMEI and Easeus should handle it ok.

For any happy Macrium Reflect Free users who are thinking about moving to AOMEI or Easeus, or Hasleo free version, I strongly recommend that you do proper tests before making a final decision (making sure you have a good Macrium Reflect backup just in case things fall over). Do not assume they will work as expected when you need them.

Hasleo looks a resonably good choice for a basic free tool as an alternative to Macrium Reflect Free but be careful how you use it.

For new users, I still recommend you try Macrium Reflect Free whilst it is still supported.

Of course, paying for a Macrium Reflect licence is always a serious option.

Other Tools

There are other tools as well, but my historical tests of others has always been a bit hit or miss. I cannot say if other tools are rock solid for my needs. As above - do proper tests.

Paragon
Had a quick look at Paragon - it looked pretty basic to me, very little info on web. GUI looks pretty old. Gave up when it started wanting ADK files.

Clonezilla
Too many minuses to be worth while:

• The destination partition must be equal or larger than the source one.
• Differential/incremental backup is not implemented yet.
• Online imaging/cloning is not implemented yet. The partition to be imaged or cloned has to be unmounted.
• Due to the image format limitation, the image can not be explored or mounted. You can _NOT_ recovery single file from the image. However, you still have workaround to make it, read this.
• Recovery Clonezilla live with multiple CDs or DVDs is not implemented yet. Now all the files have to be in one CD or DVD if you choose to create the recovery iso file.

Veeam

Website is clearly geared to corporate market. Too much hassle to proceed as not obvious and registration required.

Acronis
No comment!

@cereberus Excellent and very helpful job in your comparisons! Thank you for going to such lengths in your testing. IMO it substantiates what all us Macrium users here preach about. You also prove the importance of testing that just making a backup is not enough. Making sure an image can be restored correctly is just as important.

We see so many posts here about backup software of different varieties and it is common for someone to call us Macrium users out as being Macrium fanboys/girls when we praise it. Sometimes, it's like they think we are on Macrium's payroll or getting kickbacks for recommending it so often. I'm a firm believer that if something works, I don't mess with it....and I know Macrium works...and works every time (at least for me, it has never failed me).

Thank you very much. This is good work.

Big Props to you for sharing your results, effort and testing...

@cereberus Thank you. We've been using Hasleo free, but your post makes me wonder. Putting this one on the to-do list!

Anything that works reliably !!!! --Macrium has a solid reputation and for basic things like bog standard basic OS backups / restores and disk cloning the free version can't be bettered -- and you can mount an image if you need to "pick off a data file or two".

Please though - just don't assume because a backup has completed successfully it will necessarily restore OK -- DO TEST A RESTORE from time to time. Always good to have more than one restore image which you can use if the original fails.

Incidentally the stand alone version of GPARTED (Free) has an interface that any Windows user would be comfortable with and can also copy / resize, move partitions of any type and has a terminal command line available too.

While it's relatively trivial (or ought to be) these days to re-install Windows, saving DATA is maybe to most a lot more important - especially if you have zillions of multi-media files, work documents, photos etc. These things should never be stored on the OS partition since if you lose the OS you have to re-install that lot over again.

Cheers
jimbo

I have a bit of experience with Backup Exec from Veritas. That was before the 'cloud' opened up...
It worked very well but sadly there was never a home version and it was rather pricey.

Thank you for doing that test. Very informative.

The only issue I see with the testing method is that the three methods used for backup are different. The Macrium backup did all 4 system partitions, the others didn't. Curious if there was no option to do them all exactly the same.

I have my main Nvme setup just like yours. But I always backup the whole thing in Macrium.

TVeblen said:

Thank you for doing that test. Very informative.

The only issue I see with the testing method is that the three methods used for backup are different. The Macrium backup did all 4 system partitions, the others didn't. Curious if there was no option to do them all exactly the same.

I have my main Nvme setup just like yours. But I always backup the whole thing in Macrium.

Click to expand...

Macrium images do not make any distinction between OS backups, disk backups or partition backups.

You simply select what you want to backup, or restore. There are menu options e.g. to do a windows backup where it preselects partitions but any experienced user knows which to select. I just select the 4 standard partitions.

The other tools overcomplicate it in the pursuit of making it simple to use.

For backup software the proof of the pudding is in the eating. Thanks @cereberus since this saves a lot of time for people doing this (and possibly computers)

Hi all (and @safron )

I added Hasleo to my tests - it worked well, and I intend to use it as my backup tool to Macrium Reflect - it was the only other one I tested that worked for my setup.

Of course, usual caveat - test it properly yourself - I cannot guarantee it would work on other configurations but I see no reason why not. You must do proper restore tests.

Extra sections added to original post.

I find it interesting that two well known popular backup tools AOMEI & Easeus had significant deficiencies for my setup, but lesser known Hasleo did not, although you have to be a bit careful about restores to avoid wiping other partitions (to be fair same also applies to Macrium Reflect to a degree).

These tests all go to show the old adage is so true.

Never ASSUME anything because it could make an ASS of U and ME.

Thank you @cereberus . This is great to know.

On one of our devices (XPS) I'm in a bit of a catch-22, as our configuration won't easily allow such an image restore test.

We'd previously partitioned the 512 GB SSD to segregate the "Windows" drive (i.e., C:\, including boot sectors, Windows, Program Files, etc.) with the remainder of the drive (F:\) dedicated to our data. I originally allocated 125 GB for C:\, but Windows balked at the upgrade to 22H2 for lack of space, so I bumped it to 200 GB, and the upgrade to 22H2 went well. The F drive is now about 270 GB. Our data consumes about 30 GB.

Options:

• install a 2nd 512 GB (or larger) SSD. This is probably the best solution, but testing aside, it seems excessive, as I doubt we'd ever consume that much storage. We're currently consuming about 125 GB overall.
• re-partition C:\ back down to 125 GB. This will permit a restore test, but likely create the same issue when 23H1 comes along.
• re-partition F:\, lopping off another 200 GB for the "Test" drive (T:\) to match C:\ (I'm not sure how Hasleo would fare restoring to a different sized drive). This would leave about 20 GB of slack for our data, which will last for a while, but seems to be cutting it close.
• try restoring the Hasleo image to a 200 GB partition on a 1 TB external SSD, although a) I'm not sure if this is practical / how it would play out, or b) whether such a test provides good indication of how the image restore would ultimately fare on C:\.

I'm interested to hear your thoughts.

safron said:

Thank you @cereberus . This is great to know.

On one of our devices (XPS) I'm in a bit of a catch-22, as our configuration won't easily allow such an image restore test.

We'd previously partitioned the 512 GB SSD to segregate the "Windows" drive (i.e., C:\, including boot sectors, Windows, Program Files, etc.) with the remainder of the drive (F:\) dedicated to our data. I originally allocated 125 GB for C:\, but Windows balked at the upgrade to 22H2 for lack of space, so I bumped it to 200 GB, and the upgrade to 22H2 went well. The F drive is now about 270 GB. Our data consumes about 30 GB.

Options:

• install a 2nd 512 GB (or larger) SSD. This is probably the best solution, but testing aside, it seems excessive, as I doubt we'd ever consume that much storage. We're currently consuming about 125 GB overall.
• re-partition C:\ back down to 125 GB. This will permit a restore test, but likely create the same issue when 23H1 comes along.
• re-partition F:\, lopping off another 200 GB for the "Test" drive (T:\) to match C:\ (I'm not sure how Hasleo would fare restoring to a different sized drive). This would leave about 20 GB of slack for our data, which will last for a while, but seems to be cutting it close.
• try restoring the Hasleo image to a 200 GB partition on a 1 TB external SSD, although a) I'm not sure if this is practical / how it would play out, or b) whether such a test provides good indication of how the image restore would ultimately fare on C:\.

I'm interested to hear your thoughts.

Click to expand...

It is not clear to me what you are saying.

You should not use same physical drive for storing image backups even if a separate partition - in drive fails, you lose backup.

It is always better to have a second drive. 512 GB SSDs are less that £30 these days.

cereberus said:

It is not clear to me what you are saying.

You should not use same physical drive for storing image backups even if a separate partition - in drive fails, you lose backup.

It is always better to have a second drive. 512 GB SSDs are less that £30 these days.

Click to expand...

Sorry I wasn't clearer, @cereberus. Our Hasleo backups are on an external SSD. I was referring to potential restore locations for testing purposes.

safron said:

Sorry I wasn't clearer, @cereberus. Our Hasleo backups are on an external SSD. I was referring to potential restore locations for testing purposes.

Click to expand...

To test properly you have to overwrite existing drive.

If you have a second drive, you can restore to that (untouching first drive) and select that drive to boot from in bios.

You can do it with one drive only but less risk with two drives.

I awarded the OP 'Great Support'

I'd like to mention that next to doing an actual restore, MR's viBoot feature is very convincing that an image will actually restore, IMHO.

jimbo45 said:

Anything that works reliably !!!! --Macrium has a solid reputation and for basic things like bog standard basic OS backups / restores and disk cloning the free version can't be bettered -- and you can mount an image if you need to "pick off a data file or two".

Please though - just don't assume because a backup has completed successfully it will necessarily restore OK -- DO TEST A RESTORE from time to time. Always good to have more than one restore image which you can use if the original fails.

Incidentally the stand alone version of GPARTED (Free) has an interface that any Windows user would be comfortable with and can also copy / resize, move partitions of any type and has a terminal command line available too.

While it's relatively trivial (or ought to be) these days to re-install Windows, saving DATA is maybe to most a lot more important - especially if you have zillions of multi-media files, work documents, photos etc. These things should never be stored on the OS partition since if you lose the OS you have to re-install that lot over again.

Cheers
jimbo

Click to expand...

Your Test Restore is far more necessary than folks realize.

I have been using MR for years and in some cases, since I have a file server on which I store the weekly backup images, with PCs that can not connect to it, I was copying the backup image to a portable HDD and copying it then to the file server. I did not know the image was being corrupted in the process as I got no error indications in the copy operations.

Then, I needed to do a restore using an image and had MR fail an integrity check, And while I did verify the backups when they were done, I did not verify them again after I copied them. I checked the backups copied using the drive -- and found ALL of them to be corrupted!!

Since then, I have changed to using a portable SSD but still do verify operations after copying the images to the server -- and still find some that fail verification.

Mark Phelps said:

I did not know the image was being corrupted

Click to expand...

I never copy images. In several Macrium articles I've read, even they do not recommend copying images. If one absolutely HAS to copy, always run a verify on the image afterward.

Do I test restore every image I make? No, I don not. I maintain too many devices and don't have that much time. But my OS and data drives are backed up separately and I keep multiple images of each on 2 separate backup drives which I alternate. I make sure I have test restored at least one of the images I retain. It then becomes what I consider to be my Master Image until I have time at some point to test restore a more current one which then becomes the Master.

If one does not image often like I do, it would be in their best interest to test restore each image. I guess it would boil down to one's computing habits and the importance of the data they are trying to preserve.

Used Macrium Home for years. What folks fail to realize is the HUGE problem with Macrium is the home license only supports minor updates. At some point, a Windows update broke Macrium functionality and the only way to fix it was to buy another home or pro license to get the update that fixed the issue. The won't even allow me to upgrade my older version for the reduced upgrade price. Customer support told me to pound sand. I can't do business with a company that leaves their customers high and dry.

rfxcasey said:

Used Macrium Home for years. What folks fail to realize is the HUGE problem with Macrium is the home license only supports minor updates. At some point, a Windows update broke Macrium functionality and the only way to fix it was to buy another home or pro license to get the update that fixed the issue. The won't even allow me to upgrade my older version for the reduced upgrade price. Customer support told me to pound sand. I can't do business with a company that leaves their customers high and dry.

Click to expand...

Your expectations are completely unrealistic

You only have an issue if you run V7 on a Perpetutal licence and pick up an issue that has been fixed in a later version.

Even the Version 7 was supported for one year following release of V8.

Do you seriously expect Paramount to support old versions forever free of charge?

There is no company in the world that will offer perpetual updates on old versions UNLESS you pay an annual maintenance cost.

Of course, you could move to a lease based system like Acronis but I bet you would whinge about that even more so.

There is an easy answer to your issues - pay up for new major versions (usually heavily discounted at 50%) like the rest of us within the 1 year grace period. It is hardly Paramount's fault you failed to splash the cash in a timely manner - it is 100% your fault.